There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the double bombing but all such attacks recently have been claimed by the Islamic State group.

The latest of these, on Tuesday, killed at least seven people near a hospital in Baghdad’s busy district of Karrada.

Karrada was still reeling from a July suicide truck bomb explosion that killed more than 300 people, the deadliest single bombing ever to hit the Iraqi capital.

IS has suffered a string of military defeats over the past year and the caliphate it proclaimed in June 2014 seems doomed.

As the jihadist organisation loses territory across Iraq, observers and officials alike have warned that IS may revert to carrying out campaigns of terror attacks instead of attempting to hold fixed positions.